Evidence For Christianity

Where does all the matter in the universe come from?

Where did the space in the universe come from?

Where did the laws for the universe come from? Gravity? Inerta ect?

Where did the energy come from to do all the organizing?

Um, these are questions for cosmologists, not evolutionists. I see where I am, so I'm not going to waste my breath for long, but the person who wrote this hasn't even the slightest knowledge of evolutionary biology. For starters, cells don't reproduce sexually. Organisms do. Cells reproduce by meiosis or mitosis. Animals are multicellular. You're asking about the eukaryotic revolution, not the animal revolution. Natural selection is not a desire driven process, so what replicators "want" is irrelevant, not to mention the fact that sentience evolved very, very late on the timeline. Natural selection doesn't tend towards stability. It tends towards diversity which sometimes results in stability and sometimes not. Mutations don't change DNA into something else. It's still DNA, so it's like writing a new book in English, not changing languages.

Seriously, if this gets posted, please readers, read a book written by a scientist. There isn't a question on this page that wouldn't embarrass a first year biology student. Science is harder than religion. It might take a little study, folks.

Where does all the matter in the universe come from?
Matter = stuff. Anyone will tell you that stuff is made up of atoms. Atoms in turn are made of protons, neutrons, electrons etc. They in turn are made up of quarks, which are made up from energy. All the matter in the universe is essentially coagulated energy, a basic understanding of E=MC2 verifies it.

Where did all the space in the universe come from?
Space is not a thing; it is the absence of things. Nothing cannot come from anywhere.

Where did the laws of the universe come from? Gravity? Inertia etc?
They simply are. Scientist only qualify the laws of the universe in terms humans can understand. If the laws of gravity and inertia had functioned completely different scientist still would have recorded them as they were. The reason they are as they are is simply a matter of circumstance, they did not have to originate from anywhere.

Where did the energy come from to do all the organizing?
The first law of thermodynamics is that energy cannot be created or destroyed. Very simply energy did not have to come from anywhere, it simply always was. Humans have an innate need to place an origin on everything because out limited minds have difficulty comprehending the idea of eternity. Time does not only extend indefinitely forewords, but also indefinitely back. To put it all together, if at any point in time there was energy (now would be a great example) using the first law of thermodynamics we can deduce that there was always energy and there will always be energy.

When, where, and why did life learn to reproduce itself?
Life learned to reproduce before life existed. In a system where there are limited amino acids (the building blocks for proteins) self-replicating strands of RNA (which can occur naturally in environments rich in nucleotides which can occur naturally within geothermal vents and volcanic eruptions) self replicate using the materials present. Self-replicating chemicals have been re-created in a laboratory setting and have been observed to be prone to mutation.

With what did the first cells capable of sexual reproduction reproduce?
Cells reproduce asexually, it was only with the advent of multi-cellular organisms that sexual reproduction became commonplace. Many bacteria however, are able to connect and swap plasmids (small segments of DNA). In this process known as bacterial conjunction, bacteria form a connecting bridge by temporarily merging their membranes. This is important to allow for genetic variation. As you can see, the “idea” for sex was already there.

Why would any plant or animal want to reproduce more of its kind since this would make more mouths to feed and decrease the chances of survival? (Does the individual have a drive to survive, or the species? How do you explain this?)
Lets say for the sake of argument that we have a life form that doesn’t reproduce and a life form that does reproduce. In a few years the life form that doesn’t reproduce is dead, and so is the one that does, however the one that does have left behind some offspring which in turn reproduce offspring of their own. Now, considering that the life form that doesn’t reproduce is gone within a generation, which life form would you expect to see more of in say, four generations time. The fact is, life exists because it reproduces, to answer the second question; it is the species, not the individual that has the drive to survive, to think otherwise is simply egotistical and naive. The only reason self preservation has been ingrained into our minds is because life forms that stick around longer generally have a better chance of finding a mate and creating offspring.

How can mutations (recombing of the genetic code) create any new, improved varieties? (Recombing English letters will never produce Chinese books)
The same researchers that recreated the self replicating RNA in their lab, found that the RNA was very prone to mutation. Sometimes this mutation could cripple the RNA, but occasionally it would make it a little more efficient at replicating itself. As a result the researchers found that there were more of these RNA strands present because they were better at creating copies of themselves than the other varieties of self replicating RNA in the tube. Furthermore, you assume that each change has to be drastic, but fail to take into account the ripple effect. Removing a piece of DNA from a cell in your body might not make you grow wings, but it might remove the part of DNA that was telling the cell not to reproduce, causing rapid cell reproduction and eventually the growth of a tumor. Small changes can bring about larger effects, you just have to step back to see them.

Is it possible that simularies [sic] in design between different animals prove a common creator instead of a common ancestor?
If so, one would assume that this creator used homologous structures because they worked and he/she/it didn’t want to deviate from this model to make things simple. Why then are there vestigial structures. What possible purpose would a creator have for giving humans an appendix, or men nipples? Why is it that in the womb, fetuses have gills and tails? And if the creator wanted to stick to this model, what of analogous structures. Why is the squid’s eye structure different (and inarguably better) than ours? Why do the butterfly, the bat, and the bird all have different wing structures? Furthermore, assuming a creator because of homologous structures is a non sequitur, like assuming that you were pick pocketed simply because you can’t find your car key’s in the morning. Yes, in the strictest sense of the word it’s possible, but really you probably just left them in your coat pocket.

Natural Selection only works with the genetic information available and tends only to keep a species stable. How would you explain the increasing complexity of the genetic code that must have occurred if evolution were true?
Yes, but you are forgetting about mutation. In larger multi cellular organisms, a mutation in genes is a rarer occurrence. In the early stages when simple protocells and RNA dominated the spectrum, mutations were common, as evidenced in the lab tests I mentioned earlier. Later on with more complex life forms significant mutations happened at a slower rate, but you also need to take into account that life as we know it today has had billions of years to evolve. It’s difficult to wrap your head around how long a billion years is, and therefore it might not seem like enough time for earths huge variety of life to have evolved, but when you do get your head around it, and then realize that there were multiple billions of years for this stuff to happen, you realize that there was plenty of time.

When, where and why [sic] and how DID?
From here on are a lot of evolutionary specifics that I don’t have the time or the patience to get into. You can find multitudes of information on evolutionary trees and the development of various bodily structures by doing a simple google search.

Which evolved first…
Again the human brain attempts to apply rational process to irrational proceedings. Things don’t need to evolve first or second. They can evolve separately, and for different purposes in tandem, then later find that they function well together and mesh to form a different structure altogether. Again, if your interested, the development of specific bodily organs can be read about with some diligent research.

Lastly
Many of these quotes are
a) from people who have a religious agenda, and therefore form a biased opinion
b) have little to do with the subject
c) have been taken out of context

this one for example I am absolutely sick of seeing.
“To suppose that the eye [...] could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree.”

Here’s the full quote.

“To suppose that the eye [...] could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree. When it was first said that the sun stood still and the world turned round, the common sense of mankind declared the doctrine false; but the old saying of Vox populi, vox Dei, as every philosopher knows, cannot be trusted in science. Reason tells me, that if numerous gradations from a simple and imperfect eye to one complex and perfect can be shown to exist, each grade being useful to its possessor, as is certainly the case; if further, the eye ever varies and the variations be inherited, as is likewise certainly the case and if such variations should be useful to any animal under changing conditions of life, then the difficulty of believing that a perfect and complex eye could be formed by natural selection, though insuperable by our imagination, should not be considered as subversive of the theory.”